engineering

USA Science and Engineering Festival

USA Science and Engineering Festival is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand USA Science and Engineering Festival rather than just read about it. In short: The USA Science & Engineering Festival is a biennial science festival held in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2010 by Larry Bock, the festival is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in the United States.

Key takeaways

USA Science and Engineering Festival belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect USA Science and Engineering Festival to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of USA Science and Engineering Festival from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The USA Science & Engineering Festival is a biennial science festival held in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2010 by Larry Bock, the festival is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in the United States. The inaugural event was held on October 10–24, 2010, the second festival was April 27–29, 2012, the third festival was April 24–27, 2014, the fourth festival was April 16–17, 2016, and the fifth festival was April 7–8, 2018.

Organization History

2010 Festival The 2010 festival lasted for two weeks and culminated with an October 23–24 Expo on the National Mall. The Expo featured interactive hands-on science activities presented by over 550 U.S. science and engineering organizations. 125 universities/research institutes, 125 professional science societies, 50 government agencies, 30 high tech and life science companies and 150 informal science outreach organizations participated in the festival.

Nifty Fifty The Nifty Fifty program was a group of fifty nominated professionals in various areas of science and engineering who interacted and spoke about their work and careers to middle and high school students across Washington, D.C., in the fall of 2010. Speakers' backgrounds were varied and spanned chemistry, biotechnology, engineering, math, computer science, medicine, green technology, nanotechnology, business, physics, astronomy, and energy.

Lunch With a Laureate The "Lunch with a Laureate" program was focused on a small group of middle and high school students across the greater Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and Maryland areas. The purpose of the program was to engage students in informal conversations with a Nobel Prize–winning scientist over a brown-bag lunch. The twelve laureates that participated in this program were Leon M. Lederman, John C. Mather, William Daniel Phillips, Robert H. Grubbs, Alan J. Heeger, Dudley R. Herschbach, Phillip A. Sharp, Kary B. Mullis, Kurt Wuthrich, Douglas D. Osheroff, Baruch Samuel Blumberg and Sir Harry Kroto.

Expo The two-week festival ended with a two-day expo on the National Mall that featured over 500 U.S. science organizations. The list of exhibitors included universities, colleges, high school science clubs, student organizations, research institutes, informal science outreach organizations, community organizations, professional science & engineering societies, life science and high tech companies, and other types of science organizations. About 500,000 people reportedly attended the event. The second expo took place in Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., on April 27–29, 2012. The third expo took place in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on April 26–27, 2014.

Satellite festivals Satellite festivals were being planned in 2010 at a number of locations throughout the United States, including: Arizona: Tucson; California: Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Ana; Florida: Gainesville, Jacksonville, Ruskin, West Palm Beach; Idaho: Pocatello; Illinois: Chicago, DeKalb; Maryland: Middle River, Rockville; New Jersey: Clifton; New York: New York City, Rochester; North Carolina: Chapel Hill (North Carolina Science Festival); Ohio: Cleveland, Columbus; Texas: Austin, Dallas, San Antonio; Virginia: Fairfax, Falls Church, Hampton, Reston; Washington: Vancouver (Pacific Northwest Science & Engineering Festival). Michigan Tech's Mind Trekkers is also a traveling component of the USA Science & Engineering Festival.

Government support The festival had a bipartisan Honorary Congressional Host Committee of over 100 members. House Resolution 1660 and Senate Resolution 656 were unanimously approved in support of the goals of the USA Science & Engineering Festival. The White House scheduled its inaugural science fair to coincide with the inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival. President Obama referenced the importance of this Festival in his keynote address at the White House Science Fair. President Obama created a dedicated public service announcement inviting the general public to the USA Science & Engineering Festival. Over 50 major government officials attended or participated directly in the USA Science and Engineering Festival including: Chief Science Advisor John Holdren, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Head of R&D for Department of Defense Zachary Lemnios, Head of R&D for Office of Naval Research Michael Kassner talks about ONR's involvement with the USA Science and Engineering Festival, Head of R&D for the National Park Service Gary Machlis was involved with the festival's Nifty Fifty program, Head of R&D for EPA Paul Anastas was involved with both the Nifty Fifty program and the kick off of the festival, William Brinkman of the Department of Energy and NIH Director Francis Collins was a Nifty Fifty speaker as well as he performed his own songs at the festival's expo.

Science celebrities' support for the festival Many science celebrities participated in the inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival, including Bill Nye the Science Guy; Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, and Kari Byron from the television show MythBusters; Sid the Science Kid; cast members of NCIS; and Ernő Rubik.

2012 Festival The 2012 USA Science & Engineering Festival was at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on April 28–29, 2012, and Sneak Peek Friday was April 27, 2012. The 2nd USA Science & Engineering Festival hosted programs leading up to the festival, including Nifty Fifty, Lunch with a Laureate, Satellite Events, Sneak Peek Friday and more.

Attendees of the 2012 Festival Including attendees, exhibitors, volunteers and staff over 200,000 people actively participating in this momentous Festival celebration over the three-day period. The DC Convention Center has reported that the 2nd USA Science & Engineering Festival is the second most attended event in the history of the Center! Sneak Peek Friday more than doubled in size based on the number of students who had pre-registered, and included nearly 28,000 students, teachers, military families, government officials and press. The festival was attended by key White House officials such as Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement; President Obama's daughters, Sasha and Malia, attended a Nifty Fifty presentation; senior leaders from other countries attended, including Prince Mohammed from Saudi Arabia.

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with USA Science and Engineering Festival

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what USA Science and Engineering Festival claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to USA Science and Engineering Festival before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about USA Science and Engineering Festival ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of USA Science and Engineering Festival

In research: USA Science and Engineering Festival appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses USA Science and Engineering Festival in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: USA Science and Engineering Festival is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2010 establishments in Washington, D.C., Biennial events, Festivals in Washington, D.C., so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for USA Science and Engineering Festival outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study USA Science and Engineering Festival in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what USA Science and Engineering Festival means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain USA Science and Engineering Festival out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is USA Science and Engineering Festival in simple terms?

Why does USA Science and Engineering Festival matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study USA Science and Engineering Festival?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on USA Science and Engineering Festival.